Sunday, 27 January 2013

It would be a mistake to think that Giotto’s achievement
marked the demise of the Dugento Byzantine- influenced style in Florence. For a
long time, the advent of Giotto was put on a par with the shifting of tectonic
plates, or a form of continental drift, but the situation was more complicated
than that. As Meiss pointed out, even though Giotto’s followers transcended and
denied the Dugento, they nonetheless assimilated some of it into their own art.
Reactionary artists like Orcagna attempted the recovery of the
thirteenth-century or Dugento, though his roots are still in Giotto. [1]
The residue of Pre-Giotto-esque painting is revealed by scrutiny of
iconography, expression and colour. For example, the colours of Dugento panels
and mosaics show up in the work of Florentine masters like Jacopo di Cione, one
of Orcagna’s brothers (though more sombre in hue), Giovanni di Milano (favoured
a light apple green), and Niccolo do Tomasso (light orange, especially in the
hair). A particularly revealing panel in the Met, once attributed to Bernardo
Daddi, a Holy Face, has flesh colours of dark red-brown, with terra verde underpainting, which is
known to have used in Byzantine art.[2]

According to a Florentine writer, Franco Sacchetti, an
important meeting between a group of celebrated Florentine painters occurred just
outside the city, at San Miniato al Monte in 1390, where a discussion on
painting took place.[1]
In response to the question “Who was the greatest master of painting we have
had, other than Giotto,” some of the company replied, Cimabue, some Stefano,
some Bernardo (Daddi), and various others. One master present at this
conference, Taddeo Gaddi, sounded a pessimistic note. “Certainly there have
been plenty of skilful painters, and they have painted in a manner that it is
impossible for human hand to equal; but this art has grown and continues to
grow worse day by day.” Commenting on this story- which he included in his important
study, Painting in Florence and Siena After the Black Death- Millard
Meiss observed that the choice of competitors for Giotto was “remarkable.”[2]
Interestingly, Taddeos’s melancholic announcement was heard by Orcagna, thought
then to be the premier Florentine Trecento painter after Giotto. For some
reason Maso di Banco, now thought to be the finest interpreter of Giotto’s art
is not mentioned. As Meiss noted, Taddeo’s dismissal of Orcagna and his
followers, by omission, all of whom were considered inferior to Maso, suggest
“a profound truth.” This is that there was a great difference between the art
of Orcagna and his contemporaries from that of Giotto and his successors in the
earlier part of the Trecento, or the fourteenth-century.